Raj Ahten crawled away from his falling horse, looked up at the grim soldiers on the castle walls.
He grabbed the arrow in his thigh, pulled it free, and hurled it back at his attackers.
But when he grasped the red shaft in his collarbone, it snapped in two.
He held it up, astonished, for he'd taken it gingerly. It should not have broken under so slight a pressure.
The shaft broke, he now saw, because the arrow had been hollowed and notched. The shaft was meant to break away. Raj Ahten guessed the reason behind this even before he felt the fiery poison creeping toward his heart. He stared hard at the castle wall, saw one soldier a hundred feet above him--a tall fellow with a thin face and yellow teeth, a tunic made of pig hide. The fellow threw his longbow in the air, shouting in triumph at having killed the Wolf Lord of Indhopal.
As this first volley of arrows finished landing, a quiet moment followed where the skies remained relatively free of missiles.
Raj Ahten pulled his dagger from its sheath. The wound in his collar hurt fiercely. The poison rushed through his bloodstream so fast, Raj Ahten did not know if even his thousands of endowments of stamina could save him.
The skin on his collarbone had already healed over the wound, sealing the arrowhead beneath. With a quick shove, Raj Ahten slammed his dagger into his collar, cutting it open, and pulled out the arrowhead.
With deadly accuracy, he then hurled the dagger at the jubilant archer.
He turned and began slowly running before more arrows fell, not even bothering to watch the archer on the castle wall take the dagger through the forehead, fall back under the force of the blow.
It was enough to hear the man's death scream.
Raj Ahten ran a hundred yards over the grass. The poison made him weary, made it hard to raise one foot, then the next. His breath came slow and labored. He feared that the poison would asphyxiate him. The arrow had fallen close to his lungs, deep in his chest, and the poison had not been able to bleed out before the skin healed over the wound.
He struggled for each step, collapsed from fatigue. The wound in his shoulder hurt like death, and he could feel the poison clutching at his heart, holding it like a mighty fist.
He reached toward his men, begging aid, begging for healers. He had physics to care for him, herbalists and surgeons. Yet he was living so quickly, a minute to him now seemed like the better part of an hour. He feared he'd succumb long before an herbalist could arrive.
His heart beat sporadically, pumping hard. Raj Ahten gasped for each breath. With his endowments of hearing, Raj Ahten could hear every surge and gurgle of his failing heart. With his head pressed against the ground, he could hear worms stirring in the earth beneath him.
Then his heart stopped.
In the sudden silence, the sound of worms beneath the ground came louder, as if it were all the sound in the world.
Raj Ahten willed his heart to beat again, willed it to start. Beat, damn you. Beat...
He struggled for air, gasped. He slapped his own mailed chest in frustration.
His heart beat, weakly, once. Then it began to stutter, jerking spastically.
Raj Ahten concentrated. Felt his heart beat once, strongly. A second later, it came again. He gasped air that felt black in his lungs.
Silently, he cried out, willed his facilitators in far lands to give him more stamina, so that he might withstand this. "A king is coming," he heard the words echoing through his memory. "A king who can kill you!"
Not like this, he begged the powers. Not so ignoble a death.
Suddenly the clutching in his heart eased. It began pumping furiously, and Raj Ahten peed in his armor like an old man with no control over his bladder. He felt some relief as his body rid itself of poison.
As he lay on the grass, the pain receded. He'd been lying on the ground for what seemed to him minutes, though the archers on the wall must have felt only seconds fly by.
He fought to his feet once again, staggered to his line of troops, fell to his knees behind a Frowth giant that he used as a shield.
He glanced back, saw some of his honor guard still struggling to rise under the onslaught of arrows, shields high. But bowmen on the walls were riddling them with shafts.
Rage threatened to take him, a blind and burning rage. Raj Ahten fought it down. Destroying these men would gain him nothing.
Out of bowshot, Raj Ahten stood, panting, and shouted at the castle, "Brave knights, dishonorable lords: I come as a friend and ally in these harsh times. Not as your enemy!"
He let the full power of his Voice flavor the words. Surely these men could see he was the injured party here. Eleven of his finest warriors lay dying on the battlefield.
Though he was far away, too far for his glamour to take full effect, his Voice alone might sway the men.
"Come, King Orden," he shouted reasonably. "Let us counsel together. Surely you know I have a great army in the wings. Perhaps you can see them now from your vantage point?"
He hoped Vishtimnu was coming. Perhaps such a sighting had prodded Orden to this dastardly deed. With all the sweetness he could muster, he said soothingly, "You cannot defeat me, and I bear you no malice. Throw down your weapons.
"Throw open your gates. Serve me. I will be your king, and you will be my people!" He waited for surrender expectantly, as he had at Castle Sylvarresta.
It seemed he waited for a full minute for any reaction at all. When it came, it was not what he had hoped.
Only a couple dozen of the younger men tossed weapons over the walls, so that spears and bows clattered against the battlements, splashed into the moat.
But as quickly as the weapons fell, so did their bearers--for the hardened warriors on the wall tossed their weak-willed companions to their deaths. The bodies bounced down along the sloped walls of the castle.
A great, greasy-looking bear of a man stood directly above the gates, and he spat as far as he could, so that a wad of spittle hit Raj Ahten's dying knights. Orden's men burst into laughter and shook their weapons.
Raj Ahten sat in the cool wind, gritted his teeth. He had not spoken any better at Castle Sylvarresta, but the effect had been profoundly different.
It might have been that with his increased metabolism, he had not spoken the words as slowly as he'd hoped, enunciated them with the proper intonation. Each time one took endowments of metabolism, one had to learn the arts of speaking and hearing all over again.
Or perhaps it was the endowments of glamour, he told himself. I've lost glamour since Castle Sylvarresta. He'd felt it when the Duchess of Longmont had died, taking her endowments of glamour with her.
"Very well!" Raj Ahten shouted. "We shall do this the hard way!" If Orden had been seeking for some goad to spark Raj Ahten's anger, he'd found it.
Raj Ahten struggled for control, found himself seething. He knew it would be hard for those men in the castle. It would have been quicker for all concerned if they had surrendered. Raj Ahten had taken a hundred castles, many as stout as this, until it was a practiced art. I'll make an example of haughty King Orden, he vowed.
He stood before his battle lines, raised his warhammer high, then dropped it with a cutting motion.
The first volley of stones lofted from his catapults. Some smaller stones disappeared over the walls, while heavier loads slammed lower on the battlements. Two of Orden's cutthroats dropped under the weight of the stones.
Orden countered with artillery from the city walls--six catapults, and four ballistas. The catapults hurled small iron shot that fell like a deadly hail--five yards short of his men. Orden would have done better with some lighter shot.
The ballistas were another matter. In all the South, Raj Ahten had never seen a ballista made with Heredon's spring steel. In cities like Bannisferre and Ironton, artificers--earth wizards who had mastered secret arts of metallurgy and artifice--had labored long to make such steel. Raj Ahten was unprepared when bolts flashed from the walls in a dark blur, striking through the ranks of
his men.
One ballista bolt, like a huge arrow cast of iron, flashed toward him. He leaned away from it, only to hear the bolt plummet into someone behind with a sickly thud.
He turned to see a flameweaver sit roughly to the ground, a hole the size of a grapefruit through his navel.
The young man's saffron robes suddenly burst into white flame, as his power raged out of control.
"Retreat!" Raj Ahten called for his men to take cover. They needed little urging.
Raj Ahten raced over the hill as the flameweaver erupted--the massive form of the elemental that had coiled like a worm at the center of his soul suddenly escaping.
A lean, bald man took form, a hundred feet tall, sitting on the ground. Flames licked at his skull and swirled at his fingertips. He gazed at Longmont with a troubled expression.
Raj Ahten watched. Such an elemental could wreak havoc, blast the stone walls to oblivion, burn the gate, fry the inhabitants of the castle like maggots on a griddle. Just as the elemental had done at Castle Sylvarresta.
Yet Raj Ahten felt disappointed. For years he'd nurtured these flame-weavers. Now two had already been slaughtered in this campaign. It was a damnable waste of resources.
There was nothing to do for it but wait, watch the elemental do its work, then clean up after.
The elemental became a raging inferno that set the grass at his feet burning. The air roared like a furnace, and heat smote Raj Ahten, searing his lungs with each breath.
The hot-air balloon still hovered five hundred feet over the battlefield. Raj Ahten's men pulled it away before the elemental's heat made its silk burst into a ball of fire.
The elemental pointed itself toward the city, began striding across the battlefield.
Men on the walls of Longmont fired bows in terror. The tiny arrows flew toward the monster like stars that burst into flame in the night sky before they were consumed. The arrows could not defeat the elemental, only feed it.
The elemental reached for the nearest wood, its fingers extending in a twisting green flame that caressed the drawbridge of Longmont. The sounds of crackling wood and splintering beams filled the air. The soldiers atop the walls rushed to escape as a fiery blast slammed against the castle.
A cheer now rose from the throats of Raj Ahten's men, though Raj Ahten only smiled grimly.
Suddenly, water began gushing from the walls over the arch, flowing in runnels from the mouths of the gargoyles above the gate, wept from the castle's stone everywhere in great waves, so that the gray walls glistened.
Everywhere, water was rushing up the stone battlements from the moat, forming a wall. The great elemental turned to steam at its touch, began to shrink and dissipate.
Raj Ahten seethed, wondering.
One of his flameweavers shouted, "A water wizard's ward!" It seemed the castle had some unanticipated magical protection. Yet there were no water wizards here in Heredon that Raj Ahten had ever heard of.
Raj Ahten wondered. Such wards could not last out a year and required a magical emblem to be placed on the castle gate. He'd seen no such emblem or rune four days past.
Then he looked above the gate: Orden stood on the arch, holding his golden shield against the castle wall. The ward had been built into his shield, and by laying the shield against the castle wall, the entire castle, by extension, became shielded.
Raj Ahten's face twisted in rage as he watched his elemental shrivel amid the water's onslaught. It cringed and huddled like a lonely child, then became a common fire burning in the grass. In half a moment, even that was smothered.
Raj Ahten felt impotent, maddened.
Then the wizard Binnesman appeared on Raj Ahten's own horse, racing down from the wooded hills to the west, to put himself between the Wolf Lord's army and the castle.
* * *
Chapter 44
THE WIZARD BINNESMAN
King Orden pulled his golden shield up to his chest. He'd brought it as a gift to Sylvarresta, to celebrate their children's betrothal. The ward on the shield was to have protected Castle Sylvarresta. Now it had saved Longmont.
But the shield had become worthless, save as a target for arrows, drained of all its water spells.
Silently, Orden cursed himself. When he'd seen Raj Ahten fall from the arrow, he'd hesitated. He could have gone then, rushed down to attack the Wolf Lord and lopped off his head. Instead, he'd let his hopes soar, had thought for one breathtaking moment that the Wolf Lord would succumb from the poison. Then the opportunity to strike was gone.
Now this.
Orden studied the herbalist as he rode across the green grass on a great force horse, felt bemused. Earth Wardens seldom meddled in the affairs of men. But this one, it appeared, was fool enough to try to stop a war.
Though Orden had not seen Binnesman in a year, the old wizard had changed much. He wore robes in the colors of autumn forest--scarlets with bits of tan and gold. His brown hair had turned the color of ice. But his back was unbowed. He looked older, yet vigorous.
On the battlefield before him stood Raj Ahten's Invincibles, archers by the thousands, giants in armor, and mastiffs with leather helms and fierce collars.
Binnesman rode his mount before the castle gates.
Orden felt strange, expectant, filled with vast reserves of energy. Twenty-one warriors hid in various cellars, closets, and rooms throughout Castle Longmont. Each man, bearing arms and armor, was curled in a ball, waiting for the moment when Orden would draw upon their metabolism. Orden could feel their energy course through him. His blood seemed to burn, as if he were a pot ready to boil.
Across the battlefield, Raj Ahten's men stood under the trees, bristling at the way the battle had gone. Raj Ahten strode toward Binnesman, his motions almost a blur.
"Raj Ahten," the old wizard grumbled, straightening his back to gaze at the Wolf Lord from beneath bushy brows, "why do you insist on attacking these people?"
Raj Ahten answered calmly, "It is no concern to you, Earth Warden."
Binnesman said, "Oh, but it is my concern. I've spent the night riding through the Dunnwood, listening to the talk of trees and birds. Do you know what I've learned? I have news that pertains to you."
Raj Ahten had moved forward a hundred yards--still out of easy bowshot, yet once again he stood before his army.
"Orden has my forcibles," Raj Ahten said in answer to Binnesman's earlier query. "I want them back!" The sound carried well over the fields. Orden could hardly believe Raj Ahten spoke from so far away.
The old wizard smiled, leaned back in his saddle, as if to rest. On the green across the field, Raj Ahten's three remaining flameweavers stood. Each began giving their bodies to fire, so that their clothes burst into flame and tendrils flared out from them, yellow, red, and blue.
"Why is it," Binnesman asked, "that every forcible on earth must be yours?"
"They came from my mines," Raj Ahten said, striding forward, his face alight with seductive beauty. "My slaves dug the ore."
"As I recall, the Sultan of Hadwar owned those mines--until you slit his throat. As for the slaves, they were someone's sons and daughters before you took them. Even the blood metal you cannot claim--for it is only the crusty remains of your ancestors who died long ago in a great slaughter."
"Yet I claim it as mine," Raj Ahten said softly, "and no man can stop me."
"By what right?" Binnesman called. "You claim the whole earth as your own, but you are a mere mortal. Must death force you to release all that you claim before you recognize that you own nothing? You own nothing. The earth nourishes you from day to day, from breath to breath! You are chained to it, as surely as your slaves are chained to the walls of your mines. Acknowledge its power over you!"
Binnesman sighed, glanced up to Orden on the castle wall. "What of it, King Orden? You strike me as a fair-minded man. Will you give these forcibles to Raj Ahten, so that you two may finish with this squabbling?" Binnesman's eyes smiled, as if he expected Orden to laugh.
"No," Orden said.
"I'll not give them. If he wants them, he must come against me!"
Binnesman clucked his tongue as if he were an old woman, scolding a child. "You hear, Raj Ahten? Here is a man who dares defy you. And I suspect he will win..."
"He has no chance against me," Raj Ahten said with dignity, though his face seemed livid with rage. "You lie."
"Do I?" Binnesman asked. "For what purpose do I lie?"
"You seek to twist us all, to do your own bidding."
"Is that how you see it? Life is precious--yours, mine, your enemy's. I cherish life. Am I 'twisting' you to save your miserable life?"
Raj Ahten did not answer, but only studied Binnesman with subdued rage.
Binnesman said, "I've come before you twice now. I warn you one last time, Raj Ahten: Give up this foolhardy war!"
"You had best move from my way," Raj Ahten said. "You can't stop me."
Binnesman smiled. "No, I can't stop you. But others can stop you. The new King of the Earth has been ordained. You cannot prevail against him.
"I see hope for House Orden, but none for you. I did not come here to beg you yet again to join my cause," Binnesman said. "I know you will not join me."
"But hear me well: I speak now in the name of the Power I serve: Raj Ahten, the Earth that gave you birth, the Earth that nurtured you as a mother and father, now rejects you! No longer will it nourish or protect you."
"I curse the ground you walk upon, that it will no longer give you sustenance! The stones of the earth shall trouble you. Accursed be your flesh, your bone, your sinew. Let your arms be weakened. Cursed be the fruit of your loins, that you leave no issue. Cursed be those who band themselves with you, that they too shall suffer your lot!"
"I warn you: Leave this land!"
The Earth Warden spoke with such force that Orden expected some sign--the ground to sway and tremble or swallow Raj Ahten, or for stones to drop from the sky.
But the downs looked the same as ever, the sun still shone bright.
Earth does not kill, Orden knew. It does not destroy. And Orden could see that Binnesman had no wylde to back him, no power to effect some astonishing curse.
The RuneLords Page 47
